Duleep: Gavaskar Jr helps East Zone amass 204/4

Gwalior, Oct 20 (UNI) A scintillating unbeaten knock of 79 runs, including 10 boundaries, by Rohan Gavaskar helped East Zone notch up 204/4 on the second day's play of a Duleep Trophy encounter with Central Zone at the Captain Roop Singh Stadium here though former Team India skipper Sourav Ganguly failed to play a captain's innings.

Earlier, Central was bundled out for a paltry 130 in 36.4 overs and that gave the visitors a 115-run lead courtesy their first innings performance. At stumps, Deep Dasgupta (26 not out) was providing Gavaskar company.

When the day's proceedings began, the hosts resumed at 40/3.

Abbas Ali (57) was the highest scorer and he packed the test's first sixer besides sending the cherry hurtling to the ropes no less than nine times. Besides him, Shivakant Shukla (18) and Murali Karthik (10) were the only ones who reached double figures.

T P Singh (6), Ali (57), J P Yadav (8), Praveen Kumar (4), Piyush Chawla (3), Karthik (10) and K Parida (0) went back to pavilion in the course of the day. Sandeep Singh remained unbeaten without opening his account.

The East's Ashok Dinda claimed a rich harvest of six batsmen, Ganguly scalped 2 while D Mohanty and R Bose took 1 each.

Shivsundar Das (18) and Shubhomay Das (25) were the openers for the visitors' second innings. Abhishek Junjhunwala went cheaply for 2 while Ganguly could score only 25, including four boundaries. He scored a mere 16 in the first innings.

Central's Kumar and Chawla claimed two wickets each.

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